PDF of Newsletter - Back - Danbury Area Computer Society

December 2005
Volume 16, Issue 12
Next Meeting:
John Patrick Prophesies
on:
the Future of
the Internet
President’s File
P RESIDENTIAL
R AMBLINGS
B
ah humbug… Ok
now that I’ve gotten that out of the way
let’s get down to business. Seeing as the holidays are only moments
away, I thought I’d recommend a few computer-related gifts for the “geek” in your life.
Software
F-Secure Internet Security 2006 – FSIS
2006 is the Leatherman Tool of internet
security applications. FSIS includes everything you need: anti-virus, anti-spyware, antispam, a personal firewall and parental controls in a single user friendly product.
Contact: F-Secure Inc.
100 Century Center Court, Suite 700
San Jose, CA 95112
Tel. (888) 432-8233
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.f-secure.com
Price: $59.90 for a single user or
$119.90 for a 3 user family pack.
Webroot SpySweeper 4.5 – Spyware is
probably the fastest growing problem
facing Windows users. I’ve tried just a about
every legitimate anti-spyware application
available. SpySweeper is the one I bought
and use. Personally I think it’s the best antispyware application available today.
Contact: Webroot Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 19816
Boulder, CO 80308
Tel. (866) 612-4227
Web: www.webroot.com
Price: $29.95 for a 1 year subscription
or $39.95 for a 2-year subscription.
IN THIS ISSUE
PRESIDENT’S FILE
DIRECTORS’ NOTES
HELP LINE
PREVIEW - JOHN PATRICK
REVIEW - DIGITAL RECORDING
WINDOWS RECOVERY
SPEED-UP YOUR COMPUTER
SIG NEWS & NOTES
CALENDAR
CIRCUIT RIDER - JIM SCHEEF
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
RANDOM ACCESS
BOARD CANDIDATES
2 • DEC 2005
2
3
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
13
15
Acronis True Image 9 – Backing up
your computer used to be a lengthy
process. Not anymore… With True Image 9
and an external USB or Firewire hard drive
you can backup or restore your computer
in minutes.
Contact: Acronis, Inc.
13800 Coppermine Road
Suite 231
Herndon, VA 20171
Web: www.acronis.com
Price: $49.95 Download or $59.95 on CD.
[DACS members should contact Linda
and Gene Barlow @ www.ugr.com for special user group pricing on True Image.]
Hardware
Seagate Pocket Hard Drive – If you’ve
used a USB flash drive you know what a
great convenience they are. The only problem I have with them is their limited capacity. If you need to move several large
files, you can quickly exceed the capacity
of a flash drive. That’s where the Seagate
Pocket Hard Drive comes in… With a 5GB
capacity it’s big enough for most jobs and
at around $90 it’s cheaper than most 2GB
USB Flash drives.
Contact: Seagate Technology
920 Disc Drive
Scotts Valley, California 95066
Tel. (877) 271-3285
Web: www.seagate.com
Price: $99.99 (TigerDirect.com)
LaCie d2 External Hard Drive Extreme
– External hard drives are the easiest and
quickest way I’ve found for extra storage
or to backup your computer. I’ve tried several different brands, and the LaCie d2
Extreme is the best I’ve found. The d2
Extreme is available in capacities ranging
from 160GB to 500GB and sports USB
2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 ports
for easy connection to both PCs and Macs.
Contact: LaCie USA
22985 NW Evergreen Parkway
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Tel. (503) 844 4500
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.lacie.com
Price: $179.00 to $549.00, depending
on capacity.
Logitech MX-1000 Laser Mouse – I
never liked cordless mice; they just didn’t
seem to work as well as their corded cousins. Logitech has changed my opinion of
cordless mice, though. Not only does the
PRESIDENT’S FILE, Continued on page 4
Member
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Membership
Inf
or ma
tion
Infor
mation
dacs.doc, ISSN 1084-6573, is published
monthly by the Danbury Area Computer Society, 4 Gregory Street, Danbury, CT 06810-4430.
Annual subscription rates: $25 to regular members, $20 to students (included in dues).
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Send address changes to Danbury Area Computer Society, Inc., 4 Gregory Street, Danbury,
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Editorial Committee
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Production Editor:
Technical Editor:
Editor-at-large
Allan Ostergren
Ted Rowland
Marc Cohen
Bruce Preston
Mike Kaltschnee
Contrib
utor
s
Contributor
utors
Charles Bovaird
Richard Corzo
Jeff Setaro
Larry Buoy
Jim Scheef
Richard Ten Dyke
DACS, its officers and directors assume no liability for damages arising out of the publication
or non-publication of any article, advertisement,
or other item in this newsletter .
The editors welcome submissions from DACS
members. Contact Allan Ostergren at 860-2100047 ([email protected]. Advertisers, contact Charles Bovaird at (203) 792-7881
([email protected])
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Applications & Hardware to
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203-746-5538
http://www.dacs.org
Directors’ Notes
Officers
PRESIDENT: Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 ([email protected])
Vice Presidents: Gene Minasi, Jamie Yates, Gloria Arnold
SECRETARY: Lisa Leifels • TREASURER: Charles Bovaird
A
Directors
[email protected]
Charles Bovaird
Howard Berger
Marc Cohen
Anna Collens
Richard Corzo
John Gallichotte
Bill Keane
Bruce Preston
Jim Scheef
Jeff Setaro
Jamie Yates
(203) 792-7881
(860) 355-9837
(203) 775-1102
(203) 746-5922
(203) 797-1518
(203) 426-0394
(203) 438-8032
(203) 438-4263
(860) 355-0034
(203) 748-6748
(203) 746-0892
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Committees
NEWSLETTER: Allan Ostergren: (860) 210-0047; [email protected])
PROGRAM: Jamie Yates • WEB MASTER: Scott Preston ([email protected])
PR: Gloria Arnold ([email protected]) • APCUG LIAISON: Don Neary (203) 746-5538
RESOURCE CENTER: (203) 748-4330 • WEB SITE: http://www.dacs.org
HelpLine
Volunteers have offered to field member questions by phone. Please
limit calls to the hours indicated below. Days means 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
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you are calling. HelpLine is a free service. If you are asked to pay for
help or are solicited for sales, please contact the dacs.doc editor; the
person requesting payment will be deleted from the listing. Can we add
your name to the volunteer listing?
d = day e = evening
Pr
og r am
Pro
Name
Phone #
Alpha Four
Dick Gingras
(203) 775-1102
(d e)
APL
Charles Bovaird
(203) 792-7881
( e)
C/UNIX/ObjC
Kenneth Lerman
(203) 426-4430
(d e)
Clipper
Dick Gingras
(203) 426-0484
( e)
Dbase/DOS
Alan Boba
(203) 264-1753
( e)
DOS
John Gallichotte
(203) 426-0394
(d e)
Electronics
Andrew Woodruff
(203) 798-2000
(d e)
Focus
Jim Scheef
(860) 355-0034
( e)
Hardware
John Gallichotte
(203) 426-0394
(d e)
Interface-Instrumentation
Andrew Woodruff
(203) 798-2000
(d e)
Microsoft Access
Dick Gingras
(203) 426-0484
( e)
Newdeal
Marc Cohen
(203) 775-1102
(d e)
Paradox
Alan Boba
(203) 264-1753
( e)
PhotoShop/Dreamweaver
Anna Collens
(203) 746-5922
( e)
Statistics/Data Analysis
Charles Bovaird
(203) 792-7881
(d e)
SQL Server
Chuck Fizer
(203) 798-9996
(d )
Viruses
Jeff Setaro
(203) 748-6748
(d )
Visual Basic
Chuck Fizer
(203) 798-9996
(d )
HTML/Java
James Costello
(203) 426-0097
( e)
Windows
Nick Strother
(203) 743-5667
( e)
regular meeting of your Board of Directors was held at the Resource Center on Monday, November 7, 2005. Present
were Messrs. Bovaird, Berger, Cohen,
Corzo, Gallichotte, Preston, Scheef, and
Setaro. Also present were Larry Buoy and
Lisa Leifels. President Jeff Setaro presided
and Secretary Lisa Leifels kept the record.
Minutes of the last meeting held on October 10, 2005 were approved.
Treasurer Charles Bovaird reported
current cash assets of $13,197.61, consisting of total bank and postal accounts in the
amount of $13,057.03, plus postage on
hand of $140.58. Subtracting a liability of
prepaid dues in the amount of $5,170.00
left a net equity of $8,027.61. He also reported that the current membership is 343.
In the absence of Jamie Yates, there was
only a brief discussion of upcoming programs. John Patrick will be talking about
the future of the internet at the December
General Meeting. Jim Scheef said he would
plan on speaking at the January meeting
on Open Office.
Howie Berger contacted the Danbury
News-Times and the Citizen News, and
they are both willing to publish a press release for DACS. Howie said he needs
someone to send him a press release describing who will be speaking at the next
meeting and what they will be talking
about. Jeff suggested that Howie ask Jamie
Yates to send him the press release for the
next meeting. Howie also said that the Citizen News, which is distributed in Sherman
and New Fairfield, would like to include a
photo with the press release. Jeff suggested
that Howie get a photo of John Patrick from
John’s website at PatrickWeb.com.
Larry Buoy reviewed the changes that
he recommended be made to the DACS
Bylaws, so that they comply with the state
statutes. Jeff asked for Larry to distribute
an updated version of the bylaws to the
board members for further review. Jeff
thought that it was too late to revise the
bylaws at the annual meeting, but he would
like to do so at the April General Meeting.
Howie Berger said that Charter Communications would approve of John Gallichotte
videotaping the general meeting, since he is
an intern at Charter. John Gallichotte said
he was willing to videotape one of the upcoming General Meetings.
Jeff Setaro offered the names of
Howard Berger, Marc Cohen, Anna
Collens, Bruce Preston, Jeff Setaro and Jim
Scheef as incumbent directors for re-elecDIRECTORS’ NOTES, Continued on page 5
http://www.dacs.org
DEC 2005 • 3
President’s File, Continued from page 2
MX-1000 work better than most of its
corded cousins, it’s without a doubt the
best mouse I’ve ever used.
Contact: Logitech Inc.
6505 Kaiser Drive
Fremont, CA 94555
Tel. (800) 231-7717
Web: www.logitech.com
Price: $79.95
Distractions
Battlestar Galactica, Season One –
The original BSG was one of my favorite
television shows as a kid… I never missed
an episode; not that there were that many
episodes… The original Galactica only
ran one season.
Fans of the show have been lobbying
for a revival of the show for years… After several failed attempts, they finally got
their wish in 2003 when the SciFi channel hired producers Ron Moore and David
Eick to revive Galactica… Ron and David
did more than just revive the old show,
they reimagined it. The new Galactica,
which stars Edward James Almos and
Mary McDonnell, is a modern characterdriven drama in a science fiction wrapper.
I liked the old BSG, but I love the new
one. Personally, I think it’s one of the best
shows on television today.
You can order the five disc season one
box set from Amazon for $41.99. It includes the 3 hour pilot mini-series, all 10
season one episodes, deleted scenes and
commentary tracks from Ron Moore and/
or David Eick. A three disc set featuring
the first 10 episodes of season two will be
available on December 20th.
BSG airs Friday nights @ 10:00 p.m.
on The SciFi Channel. See www.scifi.
com/battlestar/ for episode details.
Toys for the
easily amused
Last, but not least, stop by www.
thinkgeek.com... They’ve got everything
from Star Wars light sabers and
caffeinated soap to PC upgrades. Odds are
you’ll find something there that will keep
your “geek” amused for hours.
That’s it for this month… Your comments & questions are always welcome.
You can reach me at [email protected]
or [email protected].
Happy Holidays;
—JEFF SETARO
4 • DEC 2005
Meeting Preview
The Future of the Internet
By Jamie Yates
A
T OUR TUESDAY, December 6,
General Meeting, DACS is happy
to welcome back John Patrick for
what has become
his annual appearance. John is a well
renowned globetraveling spea- ker,
who provides his audiences with an eloquent, informative
and enjoyable presentation on where
the Internet is going.
As President of
Attitude LLC and
former Vice President, Internet Technology, IBM Corporation, John is certainly an expert in his field. Because of
his extensive world-wide travels, he is able
to present a global perspective on the
World Wide Web.
John is also the author of Net Attitude
and one of the leading Internet visionaries, and believes the rapid evolution of the
Web is about to make today’s Internet
seem primitive. His presentation and technology demonstrations will bring to life a
vision of the technological and societal
changes underway, with examples of how
businesses and institutions of all kinds can
use the Internet to become on demand.
John will provide an exciting vision about
the power and the potential of the Internet
and how the Internet will provide significant advances in order to meet the increasing expectations of an on demand world.
He will discuss the key opportunities that
are just beginning to surface, and the potential limitations that may stand in the
way. More importantly, he will offer a visionary glimpse of the future beyond the
Internet as we know it.
The Internet now touches
everyone’s life in some way or another,
and with all the new gadgets becoming
available that allow Internet access
from anywhere you happen to be to get
anything you want, each of us needs to
understand as much as we can about the
Internet’s future.
You will also have ample opportunity to get your questions answered
about many facets of what’s happening
with the Internet and what new technologies will be able to provide for you.
This is a must see presentation for all
members and guests,
and will put into perspective the inner
workings of the
Internet and how it
will effect our daily
lives now and in the
future. As more and
more existing activities go online and become commonplace,
this evolving medium
will spawn even
newer, undreamed
of, capabilities for
the future.
This is a meeting all members should
attend, and if you have a friend, family
member, neighbor, or fellow worker who
wants a better understanding of what the
Internet is all about drag them to this free
meeting.
DACS meetings are held at the
Danbury Hospital auditorium. Activities
begin at 7 p.m. with casual networking and
Random Access. There is a business session at 7:30, followed by a short break
and the evening presentation at 8:00.
J AMIE is DACS program director, and a
prolific volunteer in the area community
DACS Elections are
coming in December
Be a candidate
for the Board
Contact Jeff Setaro at dacsprez@
dacs.org, and say “I want to make a
difference for DACS.”
http://www.dacs.org
Meeting Review
Directors’ Notes, Continued from page 3
Fulfilling your
burning desire
By Jamie Yates
T
tion at the Annual Meeting to be held in
December 2005. Marc Cohen and Anna
Collens have made the decision not to run
for another term. Anna said that she didn’t
have the time to attend the board meetings. Marc, who was one of the original
founding members of DACS, said that he
will continue to come to the meetings; therefore we may not be losing all of his valuable years of experience after all. Sean
Henderson and Lisa Leifels were mentioned
as possible replacement candidates.
Howie Berger inquired if anyone
thought it was a good idea if once a year
at the annual meeting we acknowledged
the contributions made by one or two of
our members. He thought we should talk
about this further at the next meeting.
All the above is easier and more conHE SUDDEN EXPANSION of
venient than carrying around a stack of
new types of media storage, like
LPs and 45s in your pocket along with a
iPod, combined with the growing
phonograph (this device used to be popuclutter of old media LPs and tapes, has
lar many years ago)
led many music
on your back. It
mavens to look for
scales down the efways to convert
fort to something
their analog colmanageable.
lections to a digiBased on all of
tal format.
Bruce’s presentaAt our Novemtions I sometimes
ber General Meet—LISA LEIFELS
wonder if there is
ing our own Bruce
room enough in his
Preston, showed
house for both his
how to turn your
family and all the
golden oldies into
different gadgets he
digital CDs or iPod
possesses. Is there
archives, and to
Members who wish to resomething Bruce
banish those pesky
ceive
DACS email messages
does not own?
pops, clicks and
Thanks Bruce!
hissing sounds in
who have not received an
“A one . . . an’ a zero . . . an’ a . . .”
the process. His
email notice for the Decem[You can download
presentation cerber General Meeting should
AudioSurgeon from www.voyetra. com]
tainly sounded great.
send a request to be put on the
Bruce brought with him a set of equipment and software, so that he could not only
DACS email list to treasurer
J AMIE is DACS program director, and a
talk about the subject but also give a numprolific volunteer in the area community
@dacs.org.
ber of different demonstrations to show
what can be done with today’s tools such
as Voyetra’s AudioSurgeon, which can be
had for a song (and a $30 download).
With the current crop of portable digital players in the marketplace, being able
to carry around and access all the different content you possess in one library or
on one portable device has been a holy
grail for a number of years. Now you can
do it and hear the results.
Converting to digital is not the only
objective. Bruce showed how with the
tools available you can improve or reorganize your media library easily once
in digital format. He did such things as
removing pops and hisses from old recordings to improve their sound quality, assembling a playlist and then burning a CD that will work in your stereo
system, computer, car, or walkman.
Bruce showed how these tasks can be
accomplished by even the most non
technical of users. If you are very lucky
(happen to own one) you can store your
"The meeting has been delayed. The president appears to be
selections on an MP3 device such as an
losing today’s game of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.”
Apple iPod. It certainly allows you to
play around.
© Milam 2005
Be Informed
by E-mail
http://www.dacs.org
DEC 2005 • 5
Tips and Tricks
Windows Recovery or Restore Disks:
Problems and Alternatives
By Vic Laurie,
O
NCE UPON A TIME you received a copy of a full Windows
installation disk when you bought
a computer. This allowed you to reinstall
individual system files or Windows components if anything went wrong. But no
longer. These days the best you can hope
for from many vendors is a so-called “recovery” or “restore” disk”. And many
major vendors do not even provide that
much. Instead they put stuff on a hidden
partition on the hard drive. This is all the
backup that you get, and if the hard drive
crashes, the hidden partition goes too.
Then you have no way of reinstalling
Windows on a replacement hard drive
without getting a disk from the original
PC vendor. From what I read on the Web,
this last process can take some time and
effort, if you succeed at all. If you are out
of the warrantee period, you may be completely out of luck.
Some vendors may provide a Windows disk when you buy a PC if they
are prodded hard enough. However,
there may be some kind of “handling
and shipping” fee. Note that, if you do
finally get a disk, it will probably be an
OEM (original equipment manufacturer) version and may lack some features of a full-fledged version. Also
OEM versions of Windows are often not
eligible for upgrades.
The failure to provide an actual
Windows installation disk with new
computers is convenient for Microsoft
and the computer vendors but can be a
real problem for the PC user. There are
many problems that can be fixed by
copying a single system file or reinstalling small portions of the Windows operating system. Without an installation
disk, PC users need to have some other
source for these files. If you put a recovery disk into your CD drive, it will
want to reformat your hard drive and
reinstall an image of your computer that
is a replica of the way your system was
on the day you bought it. Any changes
that you have made will be wiped out.
All those programs you installed, all
those Microsoft patches, XP SP2, all of
it will be gone. The same thing applies
6 • DEC 2005
when you restore from one of those hidden partitions.
Therefore, an alternative is needed.
At the very least, a source of files for
adding and removing Windows components and restoring corrupted files
should be available. Sometimes the vendor will have put the Windows installation files in the root of your hard drive
or in the Windows folder. In Windows
XP look for a folder named “I386”
(without the quotes). If you do have one
of these folders, burn a copy to a CD
for backup. This CD will not have all
the functions of an installation CD since
it will not auto-run nor will it boot.
However, reinstallation can be initiated
by clicking the file Winnt32.exe (assuming that you can get your system to
boot). If you have a FAT32 disk and can
use DOS, Winnt.exe is the appropriate
file to access from a DOS boot disk.
A problem is that you will have a
disk that lacks any of the multitudes of
patches and updates that will have come
out since you bought your computer.
Therefore, you need to “slipstream”
with the XP SP2 update. Slipstreaming
is a way of merging updates with the
original files so that everything is updated. This is not a quick job but it is
worth doing. An excellent detailed step-
by-step procedure is given at the Elder
Geek site. If you can borrow a Windows
XP installation disk (almost any version
will do) you can extract the image that is
needed to make the CD bootable and add
that to the disk. Details for using common
CD burning software to do all this is given
at the reference cited above.
One more problem can be getting the
Windows XP product key for your system.
It may be pasted or written somewhere in
the documentation that came with your
computer. Be sure to make a permanent
record of it. If you cannot find the product
key, there are several free applications that
will retrieve it from your system. One is
ViewKeyXp and is available here. Another
is Keyfinder, which is available here. Also,
system information applications like Belarc
Adviser can reveal the key.
At the end, you will still have something that provides backup only for the
Windows operating system. Since I
want to be able to restore everything,
including software that I have installed,
I prefer to spend a few dollars and use
disk imaging software. It makes keeping up-to-date backups on CDs or other
external media very easy. Norton Ghost,
BootIt Next Generation or Acronis True
Image are all reasonable choices.
VIC LAURIE is a member of Princeton PCUG,
New Jersey. He can be found at victor@
vlaur.com
This article was provided by the Editorial Committee of the Association of
Personal Computer User Groups
(APCUG), an international organization
of which this group is a member.
Do the DACS General Meetings leave you thirsting for more? Find all that
plus food for thought at the meeting after the meeting—the DACS PIG SIG.
http://www.dacs.org
Tips and Tricks
Speedup Your Computer –
Clean Your “Startup”
By Ira Wilsker
WEBSITES:
http://www.sysinfo.org
http://www.safer-networking.org
http://www.answersthatwork.com
I
RECENTLY RECEIVED several
questions on my weekly radio show
(KLVI 560AM, Saturdays 1-3pm)
and my TV show (KEBQ-TV22, cable 99,
Saturdays 4-5pm) about computers that
were slow to boot, and had obvious performance degradation. While there are
many causes of this inadequate performance, such as a fragmented hard drive,
and other problems, one of the most common causes of slow booting and poor performance is having too many programs
automatically load when the computer is
booting.
Fortunately, there are several good
solutions and resources that can speed the
boot problem and improve performance.
The manual solution, available on most
but not all versions of Windows from
Windows 98 to XP is to utilize the integrated command MSCONFIG. If available, MSCONFIG can be accessed by
clicking on START – RUN and then typing “MSCONFIG” (no quotes, and it is
not case sensitive) in the box, and then
click on “OK”. A window will open showing several tabs, one of which will be labeled “Start” or “Startup”. This will typically be a white window with black print,
showing a checkbox followed by a program name or path. Boxes that are
checked indicate a program that will load
when the computer is booted. Unfortunately, as the computer is used, and more
software is installed, many programs like
to have themselves unnecessarily load at
boot time, and many viruses and Trojans
also utilize this method to load each time
the computer is turned on.
While there are countless thousands
of legitimate and illicit Windows programs which want to load at boot, there
are several resources, some of them free,
which can identify programs as necessary
or unnecessary at boot. Once identified,
unchecking the appropriate box on the
MSCONFIG – STARTUP list may stop
that program from loading. An excellent
and fairly up-to-date website which lists
http://www.dacs.org
most of the items that may show up in
the startup box, is Paul Collins (a.k.a.
“Pacman”) startup list available at
www.sysinfo.org. The user of this
website can enter either a program name
from the startup list (without the path;
c:\directory\program.exe would only
use “program.exe”). Once the item is
found on the web list, it is clearly described, and labeled as: “Y” – Necessary, leave it alone; “N” – not required
and could be started manually if needed;
“U” – Users’ choice; “X” – Definitely
not required, a resource hog, virus,
spyware, or other item that should not
be loaded at boot; “?” – Unknown, not
listed. If the file listed adjacent to the
checkbox is listed as a “Y”, leave it
checked, and if listed as “X”, then
uncheck the box. Items marked as “N”
should be unchecked, unless they are
frequently used shortly after the computer is booted.
Many users are not comfortable
performing such tasks manually, but
there are several utilities available
that contain a startup manager to ease
the process of deciding what to allow to run, and what to stop. One
free utility that actually is intended
for another function, but contains an
easy to use startup manager is the
popular anti-spyware product Spybot
Search and Destroy (www.safernetworking.org). Since many
spyware products install themselves
in the startup list, Spybot allows the
user to control those malware programs as well as all other startup programs at boot. Download the Spybot,
install and update it, and then open
it. Click on “Mode” on the menu bar,
and select “Advanced”. On the left
side of the window will be a choice
of utilities. Go to “Tools” and click
on “System Startup.” This will load
a list of programs loaded at boot,
along with their corresponding
checkboxes. The right edge of the
window has a narrow gray bar with
two triangular arrows, one right
(close) and one left (open); click on
this bar and the data from Paul
Collins’ startup list (mentioned
above) will be shown as each listed item
is clicked on. Necessary items are highlighted in green, and users’ choice items
are highlighted yellow. Dangerous and
unnecessary items are highlighted in red,
and white items are unknown to
“Pacman”. Unwanted items can have
their corresponding “check” removed
by clicking on the checkbox; this will
stop the item from loading at boot.
Items can also be deleted using the red
“X” at the top of the window. When
Spybot is exited, the changes to the
startup will be saved, and should not
load at the next boot.
A reasonably priced ($20) commercial
program that offers greater power and
flexibility to control what loads when the
computer boots is a British program “The
Ultimate Trouble Shooter” available at
www.answersthatwork.com. Open the
program and click “Startups”. Initially,
startup programs will be labeled in the traditional red (remove), yellow (personal
choice), green (leave it alone), and white
(not listed). Upon clicking on any startup
item a detailed description is displayed on
the bottom half of the window.
Unchecking a box will stop the item from
loading at the next boot.
There are several other utilities that
contain startup managers, and most will
do a satisfactory job. By cleaning the files
that load at boot, the computer will boot
faster, have fewer software conflicts, run
faster, shutdown faster, and increase your
computing satisfaction.
I RA W I L S K E R ,isan APCUG Director;
Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX;
radio & TV show host. [email protected]
This article is provided by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG),
an international organization of which this
group is a member.
Are you
up to your
nose with
computer
questions?.
DACS Special
Interest Groups
may have the
answers. If not, let us
know, and we’ll try
to create a new
SIG that helps
fulfill your special needs.
DEC 2005 • 7
Special Interest Groups
SIG NOTES: December 2005
Access. Designs and implements solutions using Microsoft Access,
and with SQL Server as a back-end to the database program.
Contact: Bruce Preston, 203 431-2920 ([email protected]).
Meets on 2nd Tuesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: Dec 13
Advanced Operating Systems. Explores OS/2, Linux, and NT operating systems. For info, follow link to Don's site on dacs.org.
Contact: Bill Keane ([email protected]) 203-438-8032.
Meets 2nd Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: Dec 14
Macintosh. Focuses on all aspects of the Mac operating system.
Contact: Richard Corzo ([email protected])
Meets 1st Thursday at DACS Resource Center at 7 p.m.
Next Meeting: Dec 1
Microcontroller. Investigates microcontroller applications from
theory to hands-on implementation and member projects.
Contact: John Gallichotte, 203 426-0394,([email protected]).
Meets on 4th Tuesday, 7:00 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: In hiatus until further notice.
dotNET. Programs for Web site/server.
Contact: Chuck Fizer ([email protected]).
Meets 1st Wednesday, 4-6 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 7
Open Source Web Programming. Focuses on open source
tools for Windows and Linux.
Contact: John Lansdale, 914-533-2002.
Meets on 3rd Monday, 7:00 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 9
Excel/Math. Review of mathematics with emphasis on programming spreadsheets for business applications.
Contact: Charles Bovaird, 203-792-7881 ([email protected]).
Meets on 3rd Thursday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: Dec 15
PC Maintenance. Review of PC hardware and OpSys maintenance and use.
Contact: Charles Bovaird, 203-792-7881 ([email protected]).
Meets on 4th Thursday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: Dec 22
Digital Imaging. All about digital cameras, retouching and printing.
Contact: Ken Graff at 203 775-6667 ([email protected]).
Meets last Wednesday, 7 p.m.at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 28
Server. Explores Back Office server and client applications, including Win NT Servers and MS Outlook.
Contact: Jim Scheef ([email protected])
Meets 2nd Thursday, 7 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: Dec 8
Investment Strategies. Discusses various investment strategies to maximize profits and limit risk.
Contact: Paul Gehrett, 203 426-8436, ([email protected]).
Meets 3rd Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Edmond Town Hall, Newtown.
Next Meeting: Dec 15
Jobs. Networking and discussion of the jobs search environment.
Contact: Charles Bovaird, 203-792-7881 ([email protected]).
Meets on 3rd Friday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.
Next meeting: TBA
Linux. Provides Help in installing and maintaining the Linux operating system. Also of interest to Apple owners using OS X.
Contact: Bill Keane ([email protected]) 203-438-8032
Meets 3rd Wednesday, 7:30 pm at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 21
Visual Basic. Develops Windows apps with Visual Basic.
Contact: Chuck Fizer, 203 798-9996 ([email protected]) or Jim
Scheef, 860 355-8001 (JScheef@Telemarksys. com).
Meets 1st Wednesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 7
Wall Street. Examines Windows stock Market software.
Contact: Phil Dilloway, 203 367-1202 ([email protected]).
Meets on last Monday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 26
Web Design. Applications for designing and creating Web sites.
Contact: Anna Collens, 203-746-5922 ([email protected]).
Meets 3rd Tuesday, 7-9 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.
Next Meeting: Dec 20
SIG News & Events
dotNET. Our session began with some real excitement when we
were drawn to a new laptop machine proudly set up by Jim Scheef.
Not only does it have tremendous eye appeal, but it also has a
64-bit processing chip inside from AMD. Acer has certainly taken
a lead role in a fast-moving technology. With Microsoft XP Professional on it, great things can be done.
Claude managed to edge into this lively scene with a topic of
enduring concern: making sense with code. The gist of this discussion was to explore some possibilities for logical analysis in
the coding process for C#. Two aspects of communication with
machines were considered, an aspect seen in a deliberative mode
and an aspect seen in an intuitive mode. In a spirited discussion
with an audience of widely experienced gurus, many examples
of tools and techniques came into view.
Greg Austin affirmed that his coding process was intuitive and
offered to present an example of a prior project. Greg’s application was designed and implemented for a workgroup in a LAN in
8 • DEC 2005
his place of work. A key feature of this application is to control at
the server his dynamic link libraries for contacts and photos. Each
client machine uses the same DLL in the server machine, so that
changes and updates can be done in one place rather in each
client machine. Information resources at several client desks were
consolidated in an automated database in the server. This application used a coding technique of reflection to achieve economy
of concept and operation.
Not too reluctantly we paused for pizza. The sausage as a
topping tasted better than ever. This taste delight prompted many
reminiscences of those good old days in Chicago, where Jim
Scheef had yet to discover pepperoni and happily savored superb sausage where it doesn’t get any better.
Afterward, Greg continued his demonstration and highlighted
some of his uses of patterns in design of code. With a sentry
pattern, he has an escape from code where a null occurs. He
SIG Notes, Continued on page 12
http://www.dacs.org
December 2005
Danbury Area Computer Society
Sunday
Monday
S M
6
13
20
27
4
7
14
21
28
Nov 2005
T W T
1 2 3
8 9 10
15 16 17
22 23 24
29 30
F
4
11
18
25
Tuesday
S
5
12
19
26
5
S
1
8
15
22
29
M
2
9
16
23
30
Jan 2006
T W T
3 4 5
10 11 12
17 18 19
24 25 26
31
6
12
13
Thursday
1
F
6
13
20
27
S
7
14
21
28
7
7:00 P.M.
GENERAL MTG
11
Wednesday
14
Saturday
2
3
9
10
16
17
Macintosh
7:00 PM
Richard Corzo
[email protected]
8
4 PM Internet Prog.
7 PM Vis ual Basic
Chuck Fizer
203 798-9996
Friday
7:00 PM
Server
Jim Scheef
860 355-0034
15
7:00 PM
Math
Charles Bovaird
203 792-7881
7:00 PM
Board of Directors
18
19
Opensource Web
Program.
7:00 PM
John Lansdale
914-533-2002
25
26
7:00 PM
WALL STREET
Phil Dilloway
203 367-1202
http://www.dacs.org
7:00 PM
Access
Bruce Preston
203 431-2920
20
Web Design
Anna Collens
203 746-5922
27
7:30 PM
Advanced OS
Bill Keane
203 438-8032
21
7:30 PM
Linux
Bill Keane
203 438-8032
28
7:30 PM
Investment
Paul Gehrett
203 426-8436
22
DACS.DOC
Deadline
23
24
30
31
7:00 PM
PC Maintenance
Charles Bovaird
203 792-7881
29
7:00 PM
Digital Imaging
Ken Graff
203 775-6667
DEC 2005 • 9
Commentary
Circuit Rider
Version 3.7
By Jim Scheef
D
OWNLOAD YOUR music–it’s
safer than buying Cds!
Unless you’ve been hiking in
the wilderness for the last two weeks, you
heard about Sony BMG’s plan to infect
your computer with “root kit” software intended to hide digital rights management
(DRM) software that
limits how you use
the music on that the
new Neal Diamond
album you just
bought. At first, Sony
BMG (the music
publishing part of
Sony) denied that
they used anything
like the “malware”
you work so hard to
avoid; but when other
malicious code was
released that exploited the Sony code
to hide its files too,
the record company
was forced to acknowledge what they had done and try to
correct the problem. The result is a recall
of possibly millions of CDs sold over the
last few weeks. You can read Sony’s apology and find information about how to
identify problem CDs, the program to exchange those CDs, and how to remove the
bad code from your computer on
www.sonybmg.com.
Now, can you imagine being the executive who approved this plan? Or, even
worse, how about the poor IT guy who
told that executive, “Oh, yea, this will
work. No one will ever find this stuff and
defeat it.” Fortunately for us, one of the
first people to find the “root kit” was Mark
Russinovich of Winternals, Inc., a company that makes tools that get you out of
bad trouble when Windows servers crash.
He also has a site called SysInternals.com
that offers free software. He was testing
one of those programs (RootkitRevealer,
which does what the name implies), when
he discovered the Sony malware. (Ok, he
wasn’t the first to find the Sony malware,
but was the first to publicly announce it.)
Make no mistake, this is malware. It hides
files at the lowest level of the operating
system and then uses the hidden files to
10 • DEC 2005
monitor your use of the music on the protected CDs and phone home to Sony.
There is another unintended (and so
far unreported) angle to this story. Technically, Mark Russinovich violated the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) when he found the Sony code.
He was debugging a
new version of
RootkitRevealer, and
had to reverse engineer the Sony root kit
code to determine
what it did and how
to defeat it. When he
started, the Sony
copy protection software was just another
splotch of evil code
that did not belong
on the computer. It
was not until be disassembled it that its
origin and purpose
became clear. It is
against the law to disassemble or reverse engineer any software
intended to protect copyrighted material.
Now I ask you, should Mark go to jail?
The DMCA needs to be repealed. Call
your Congresspeople and next year don’t
vote for them if they continue to support
this gift to the music and movie industries.
A challenge
Can you stop using Internet Explorer?
I did. Well, almost; every once in a while I
still need to open something in IE. After a
lot of trials and a few false starts, I finally
made Firefox 1.0.7 my default browser.
Along the way, I’ve found enough cool stuff
to make a general meeting presentation.
Initially I did not like Firefox by itself
enough to make the switch–there were too
many IE features and add-ins that I missed.
However, once I discovered the Mozilla
Extensions web page (https://
addons.mozilla.org/extensions/) I found
little tools that fixed all of my complaints
and even made life a little easier. One of
these
extensions
is
called
PlainOldFavorites. This cool 22K download puts your IE Favorites on the Firefox
menu bar, so they work just like in IE. No
more synchnonizing your Firefox Book-
marks and IE Favorites! This, plus the
Firefox versions of the Yahoo and
RoboForms toolbars, and I was hooked. I
now have more than fifteen extensions
loaded.
Along the way, I found that there is
more to this than just telling Firefox to be
your default browser. I also went into the
Tools menu of Windows Explorer (note
the name–not IE) and opened Folder Options. Click the File Types tab and scroll
down to the HTM and HTML file extensions. Now click the Change button,
browse to firefox.exe (wherever you have
it installed) and click OK all the way out.
If you did this right, all of your IE shortcuts will change the Firefox logo, as
Firefox is now the default program for that
type of file. Double clicking what used to
be an IE shortcut on your desktop now
opens that web site in Firefox. Cool, eh?
Call your Congresspeople
By the time you read this, the renewal
of the USA Patriot Act will probably be a
fait accompli. But if it’s not, please call
your congresspeople (all of them) and ask
how they have voted on the Patriot Act
Renewal. Tell them that your civil
librerties are important and that you are
ashamed that they voted for the act as it
was (both of our Senators did) and that
you expect them to protect your civil liberties. Remember when this was first
passed? The Justice Department and the
FBI said the library records search provision would “hardly ever be used”. Well
they have used it more than 30 thousand
times since then. I find it hard to believe
that all of those instances were “exceptional cases” of national security.
JIM SCHEEF is former president of DACS and
a computer consultant.
Smart advertisers
reach over
500
active computer
users and
software buyers
by taking
advantage of
the attractive
advertising rates
in
DACS.DOC
http://www.dacs.org
Legal Bytes
What is CALEA
and Will It Affect My Life?
By John Brewer
I
N 1994, CONGRESS passed a law
known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
The purpose of CALEA is to define the existing statutory obligation of telecommunications carriers to
assist law enforcement in executing
electronic surveillance pursuant to
court order or other
lawful authorization and requires
carriers to design
or modify their systems to ensure that
lawfully-authorized electronic
surveillance can be
performed. That is
a mouthful
In simple terms,
the focus is electronic surveillance of telephone calls. A bit
of history preceding the enactment of
CALEA is helpful.
Electronic surveillance consists of either the interception of call content (commonly referred to as wiretaps) and/or the
interception of call-identifying information
(commonly referred to as dialed-number
extraction) through the use of pen registers
and/or trap and trace devices. Lawfullyauthorized electronic surveillance is considered to be an invaluable tool for law enforcement in its fight against crime and terrorism.
In 1968, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets
Act, which laid out the meticulous procedures law enforcement must follow
to obtain the necessary judicial authorization to conduct electronic surveillance. The law was enacted after Congress debated issues concerning law
enforcement’s need to effectively address serious criminal activity and an
individual’s right to privacy.
In 1970, Congress amended the federal wiretap statute to make clear the duty
of service providers and others to provide
law enforcement with the technical and
other assistance necessary to accomplish
the intercept.
http://www.dacs.org
In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to
safeguard national security by authorizing
select government agencies to conduct electronic surveillance of a foreign power or an
agent of a foreign
power for the purpose of obtaining
foreign intelligence
information.
In 1986, as a result of developments in telecommunications and
computer technologies, Congress enacted the Electronic
Communications
Privacy Act, which
amended the Omnibus Crime Control
and Safe Streets Act
by broadening its
coverage to include electronic communications (including email, data transmissions,
faxes, and pagers).
The provisions of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, as
amended, continue to govern the U.S. procedures for obtaining legal authority for
initiating and conducting lawful interceptions of wire, oral, and electronic communications.
CALEA seeks to expand the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to perform
electronic surveillance and stay current with
changes in technology. The issue that has
become a current controversy is the cost of
compliance by the private sector. A term
that is attached to this sort of compliance
issue is “unfunded mandate.”
A recent article in the New York Times
addresses CALEA and the cost of compliance. “The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is
requiring hundreds of universities, online
communications companies and cities to
overhaul their Internet computer networks
to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online
communications. The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed
protests and the threat of lawsuits from uni-
versities, which argue that it will cost them
at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers. The order, issued by
the Federal Communications Commission
in August and first published in the Federal
Register last week, extends the provisions
of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing
wireless service and commercial Internet
access providers. It also applies to municipalities that provide Internet access to residents, be they rural towns or cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have
plans to build their own Net access networks.”
The technology that has created the sudden brouhaha is the ability to make telephone calls over the Internet. Internet traffic is sent in packets of data and they do not
necessarily follow each other in a constant
stream of traffic. In fact, they are often sent
through different Internet routes and assembled at the receiving end.
According to the New York Times article, “technology experts retained by the
schools estimated that it could cost universities at least $7 billion just to buy the
Internet switches and routers necessary for
compliance. That figure does not include
installation or the costs of hiring and training staff to oversee the sophisticated circuitry around the clock, as the law requires,
the experts said.” Terry Hartle, a senior vicepresident of the American Council on Education is quoted as stating, “This is the
mother of all unfunded mandates. Even the
lowest estimates of compliance costs would,
on average, increase annual tuition at most
American universities by some $450, at a
time when rising education costs are already
a sore point with parents and members of
Congress.”
On October 25, 2005, a coalition of
public interest and business groups asked
the federal appeals court for the District of
Columbia to overturn the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring that broadband Internet and interconnected voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
services be designed to make government
wiretapping easier.
In the ruling finalized on October 13,
the FCC ordered distributors of broadband
and certain VOIP services to comply with
the CALEA. CALEA requires telephone
companies to design their systems to ensure a baseline level of government wiretapping capability. Some experts opine that
when Congress passed CALEA in 1994 it
specifically exempted the Internet from its
reach.
The civil liberties, privacy and high-tech
industry advocates opposing the FCC rul-
DEC 2005 • 11
ing warn that it extends the wiretapping
rules to technologies it was never intended
to cover, imposes a burdensome government mandate on innovators and threatens
the privacy rights of individuals who use
the Internet and other new communications
technologies.
The appeal was filed by a number of
parties that include the Center for Democracy and Technology, COMPTEL, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, Pulver.com and
Sun Microsystems.
The merger of the voice telephone system and the Internet has created new challenges that are yet to be resolved.
John Brewer practices law in Oklahoma City,
is a member of the Governor’s and Legislative
Task Force for E-Commerce, and enjoys
issues relating to eBusiness and cyberspace.
Comments and questions are welcome and
can be emailed to [email protected].
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The article may contain sources for
content as attributed within the article.
The above article appeared in the Computer Club of Oklahoma City eMonitor, November 2005. It was provided by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an
international organization of which this
group is a member.
New Members
10-20-2005 to 11-24-2005
Lary Grossr
THIS IS YOUR LAST
NEWSLETTER
If the membership date on
your mailing label reads
EXP 9\2005
or earlier
You need to renew your
DACS membership
NOW
12 • DEC 2005
SIG Notes, Continued from page 8
also showed how to change displays by changing a plug-in control of properties to
appear in drop-down combo boxes.
Another cool tactic he showed us was his use of Dreamweaver to construct HTML
code and test it with sample displays. Then this code can be put into an SQL table in
a memo field to be drawn out for use in a C# application.
Finally, a tip passed to us was to take notice of a good editor from http://
www.fckeditor.net/. Greg has used it to advantage in his coding process. With so
many good insights and precepts we were ready to sally forth.
PC Maintenance . The motivation for the October PC Maintenance SIG meeting
came from a recent experience removing some virus’ from a friends machine. It had
been operated for six months using a dial up connection without virus, ad-ware, or
firewall protection. The PC was acting sluggish. Occasionally, a window would have
a blinking blue highlight and the machine would freeze, forcing the user to restart the
machine.
Attempts to install ad-aware were frustrating, and after a few hours the machine
was moved to a workbench. The next step required stopping all programs on this XP
machine at startup using start, run, msconfig and selecting diagnostic mode on the
general tab. After a restart, we checked the startup tab and determined all listed
startup programs were unchecked except one invoking se.dll. Of course, this looked
suspicious. Calling our virus guru, it was suggested that XP recovery should be
turned off so that previous settings would not be restored upon restart. This procedure allowed running the machine with all startup items unchecked.
The following free software was now successfully installed from trusted Internet
sites: ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware SE, and Spy-bot S&D. A licensed copy of F-Prot for
Windows virus program (from www.f-prot.com) was installed.
The downloaded version of Ad-aware, Spy-bot, and F-Prot were run which eliminated a long list of problems. The latest tables were downloaded for Ad-aware, Spybot, and F-Prot. These programs were re-run, picking off a few more problems.
Running the default setup of F-Prot identified a virus called Netsky, but was unable to remove it. Researching Netsky using Google, we found a downloadable fix at
www.F-Secure.com. Executing the downloaded “fix” program corrected the problem,
which was verified by a re-run of F-Prot.
With Zonealarm active, it was verified that no open doors existed by running
ShieldsUp from www.grc.com.
Further research on se.dll (using www.google.com) referenced w32/Startpage
and W32/downloader.cuf. Additional research indicated this was related to
CoolWebSearch, a program that redirects search sequences. This was viewed as
undesirable since it was installed on the machine without user authorization. In addition, since an easy process to remove it proved difficult, it was viewed as a forced
entry onto private property without authorization.
We found a solution - CWShredder.exe - from a trusted site (www.SmartComputing.
com) that successfully eliminated it from detection by F-Prot.
We re-ran Ad-aware, Spy-bot, and F-Prot successfully, and then performed a windows update. This machine had never had any Windows updates and the update
process took hours.
After turning on XP recovery and restarting the machine, we again validated the
machine was virus and “ad ware “ clean.
At the October PC Maintenance SIG all these issues were illustrated, reviewed,
and discussed. We also discussed some alternative actions such as: (1) Backing up
your data and performing disaster recovery (requires experience, knowledge, and
patience), (2) Hiring an expert (estimated cost $300), or (3) Backing up your data
and reinstalling it along with all applications on the new machine. The latter may
prove to be the most cost effective solution if your current machine is over two years
old.
Web Design. Last month’s meeting took a look at CSS and how it relates to different
media. A web page can be made more user-friendly if it is customized to the end
product. Whether it is interpreted by a screen, printer, handhelds or WebTV, a designated style sheet can optimize the page to each item. In the case of printing, CSS
can be modified to change the text formatting, as well as hide items not necessary on
a printed page such as link bars or images.
A Yahoo news group has been set up for our DACS web design sig. Go to
[email protected]. Sign up and let’s communicate with
each other for help and/or suggestions for the web design SIG meetings.
Next month’s meeting will look at PhotoShop and how it can help start a site
design. Go to www.annagraphics.com/sigsite for more information.
http://www.dacs.org
Random Access
November 2005
Jim Scheef, Moderator
W
E WELCOME QUESTIONS FROM the floor at the start of our General
Meetings. In addition, members who are not able to attend the General Meeting may submit questions to [email protected]. We will ask the question for
you and post the reply in DACS.ORG. Please provide as much information as possible
since we can’t probe during the session.
Q. (AskDacs) I use Windows 98SE and
Outlook Express. For some reason,
Outlook Express refuses to remember my password—I have to enter it
every time I start it. The check box
that says “Remember Password” is
greyed out. How do I get it to remember my password?
A. We looked in Google using
“site:microsoft.com outlook retain
password” and found that this is a
known bug in Windows, a registery
entry is bad. The way to fix it is
outlined in the Microsoft Knowledge
Base article http://support.microsoft.
com/?id=290684.
Q. I have recently purchased a new computer with Windows XP, and would
like to move my existing saved e-mail
messages, address book, etc. from my
old Windows 95 computer. Is there a
way to do it?
A. Yes, Microsoft provided a utility in
Windows XP called the “File and
Settings Transfer Wizard”. What you
do is run it first on you new machine,
and it will prepare a file which you
then save on a diskette or CD. You
then take it to the old computer
(Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000 or
XP) and run it. It will seek out and
identify your “My Documents” files,
mailbox files etc. and put them in a
single (and very large) file which you
then move to your new machine. You
will need to figure out how to move
the file—it could be by burning a CD,
writing to a flash drive, writing via a
shared drive on a server or on the new
machine, etc. You then run the File and
Settings Transfer Wizard on your
NEW machine and point it to the
transfer file. It will then import the file
and distribute the files to the
appropriate locations. Also, important—
especially if you are coming from a
Windows NT, 2000, or XP machine,
it will adjust the ownership
permissions for the files so that you
may access them. You will find the File
http://www.dacs.org
and Settings Transfer Wizard in your
START menu at START /
PROGRAMS / ACCESS-ORIES /
SYSTEM TOOLS / FILE AND
SETTINGS TRANSFER WIZARD
Q. When I open my inbox, I often have a
long list of e-mails that I really don’t
want to read at all. Is there a way to
get rid of them all at once rather than
clicking on each one individually and
then clicking delete?
A. Sure. You can do it using a Windows
convention that also works in many
other places, such as Windows
Explorer for removing files. Do a
single click on the first message in the
list, thereby highlighting it. Then scroll
down to the last message in a
contiguous group and shift-click it. All
of the messages between the first one
you clicked on and the one that you
just shift-clicked on will be
highlighted. Now click the delete
button (or press the delete key on the
keyboard) and the collection of
messages will be deleted at once.
There is also a variation on the
method—you may do a control-click
on individual messages to add them
to the highlighted list. You may also
do a control-click to un-highlight an
individual message. Thus,suppose you
have 10 messages and only want to
keep the sixth one. Click on the first,
shift-click on the last (thereby
highlighting them all) then controlclick on the sixth (thereby removing
the highlight from just the sixth.)
When you have the messages that you
want to delete hightlighted hit the
delete button or key and way they go.
One more embellishment—in
Windows Explorer, if you are doing
this with files—if you hold down the
shift key while you press the delete
button or key, you will get the
confirmation message as usual, but the
files will be fully deleted rather than
‘moved’ to the recycle bin. Use with
caution! Some more embellishments —
press control-A and all messages
(files) will be selected. You may then
un-select with a control-click.
Q. My daughter has a computer with a
3GB hard disk and Windows 2000.
The drive is almost full. Can I upgrade it to Windows XP? ?
A. Now let’s get practical—you can
purchase a new hard drive for about
$1 per gigabyte at most any office
superstore, Walmart, Costco, etc.
Drives packaged for consumer use
come with software and detailed
instructions that tell you how to install
the drive and ‘clone’ the old drive onto
the new drive so that it becomes your
primary (boot) drive. Once you have
copied your drive (operating system
and data) you remove the old drive,
change the cable connections and
possibly move a jumper, and you now
have lots of room. Lastly, however,
you should take into consideration
whether you really want to upgrade a
machine that is perhaps 5 years old if
it has Windows 2000 on it—with the
cost of new machines under $400 for
a machine that is considerably more
powerful than anything that came with
Windows 2000, it is questionable as
to whether you should put any money
into the old machine—especially if the
new machine comes with a copy of
Windows XP. If you have the
installation CDs for all of your
application programs (things such as
Office, etc.), you may still install them.
You may still run older versions of
Office (97, 2000, etc.) on an XP
machine. By the way, the DACS
Hardware SIG will show you how to
do upgrades like this.
Q. Will running ‘defrag’ give me more
space?
A. Defrag doesn’t reclaim space. All it does
is put all the pieces of files into
adjacent portions of the hard disk so
that when Windows or an application
needs to read the file into memory the
hard disk can get at it with a minimum
of moving the head around. (The
slowest part of reading or writing to
the hard disk is positioning the head
to the proper location on the disk.) If
you had 2 GB of data on the drive
before you defrag, you will have 2 GB
of data when you end. However, there
is a ‘disk cleanup’ utility which will
scour your drive looking for
abandoned files—things in the temp
folders etc. and remove them. If you
DEC 2005 • 13
drive on your daughter’s computer
is compressed means that at some
point in time the drive got full and it
was compressed to “make more
room.” If you are looking to upgrade
the system, it probably isn’t a good
idea to work with a compressed drive.
haven’t done periodic ‘house
cleaning,’ then that will help some. For
example, if in Internet Explorer, go to
TOOLS then INTERNET OPTIONS
and on the “GENERAL” tab, click
DELETE FILES. This will get rid of
copies of portions of web pages that
are in your browser’s cache. Cached
files (also known as ‘Temporary
Internet Files’) are typically images of
things like buttons, logos, etc. that the
browser stores in anticipation of your
returning to a page. It is faster for the
browser to retrieve files that it has
cached than to go out to the the web
page to get another copy. Thus, for
example, if you frequent eBay, you
will find many of the eBay logos and
images in the cache. Other browsers
are similar—for example, often you
will see AOL mention that it is
refreshing graphic images or ‘art
work’. Note that if you haven’t done a
disk clean up or cleared your cache, it
may take 10 minutes or more to clean
up the disk. You might want to
consider looking at Webroot’s
Window Washer http://www.webroot.
com/consumer/products/
windowwasher utility, which will do
an intelligent clean-up of your
machine.
Q. I have a new laptop that does not have
a parallel printer port, and my printer
requires a parallel printer connection. Is there an adapter available?
A. There are several USB to Parallel
adapters—the Belkin and Targus
brands come to mind. Just be aware
that not all of them support bidirectional data transfer which is
required for many or the more
sophisticated printers. The adapters
cost around $30 to $40 dollars. Note
that in many cases it might make
more sense to retire the old printer
and replace it with a new printer that
supports USB. Another thing to
consider is a printer that has a builtin ethernet port. With that, you
connect the printer to your
broadband router, and any computer
on your network can submit print
jobs—you don’t have to have a
computer connected to printer to act
as a print server.
Q. I have a machine whose C: drive is
marked “compressed.” Is that the
same as DoubeSpace?
A. Back in the days when hard drives were
expensive, someone invented a
technology that compressed all files
on a drive (or folder) using the same
technology as the ZIP utilities. This
could often reduce the space
consumed by the file on the drive to
less than half its original size —but
at the cost of requiring additional
processor time to open, read or write
the file. The technology was first
marketed by Stacker, but Microsoft
soon made it an option in Windows
called DoubleSpace. In Windows 95
and 98, etc., you could create a
‘virtual’ volume, i.e. letter “D:” drive
which was actually a large file on
your real drive “C:” that was
managed by DoubleSpace. In
Windows NT and later, the whole
drive could be compressed. There
are some serious drawbacks to
compressing the system drive—for
one thing, if the file is part of
Windows, you take a real
performance hit if operating system
files are compressed. That the C:
Q. I have a 200GB external USB hard
drive. I plug it in and see nothing.
FDISK doesn’t see it. Is there a way
to recover the image files that I know
are on that drive?
A. Sounds like the drive might have been
removed when the allocation table
wasn’t posted. You might be able to
recover your data using a data
recovery tool, but things are being
complicated by it being a USB drive.
If the case can be opened such that
you can get at the drive itself, you
might have better luck if the drive is
directly attached to an IDE
controller. But be very careful that
you don’t mess up the partition table.
You mentioned FDISK—if you write
with FDISK, you are going to have
a real problem. You might look into
Ontrack’s EasyRecovery program.
There is a free trial version that will
bring back one file at a time—it
should be enough to determine if the
drive can be fully recovered. As an
aside—for media files it is very
important that you do not just unplug
the drive without first “stopping” the
device. There is an icon in the system
tray that you click to open a windows
14 • DEC 2005
FREE
CLASSIFIEDS
DACS members may publish noncommercial, computer-related classified ads in
dacs.doc at no charge. Ads
may be placed electronically by
fax or by modem, or hard-copy
may be submitted at our
monthly general meeting. Fax
your ads to Charlie Bovaird at
203 792-7881.
Leave hard-copy classifieds with Charlie, Marc, or
whoever is tending the members’ table at the meeting.
For Sale. HP P920 19" CRT 1280x1024
resolution - $30.00
Samsung SyncMaster 512n 15" Flat Panel
- $75.00
HP 200i DVD+RW Drive - $20.00
Contact: Jeff Setaro @ 203-748-6748 or
[email protected]
for disconnecting USB devices. This
is important for any type of
removable media—hard drives, flash
drives, media (camera) cards, etc.
Q. Related question: I have a compact
flash card which appears to be unusable. Is it trash?
A. Probably not—there are several
recovery programs available—
Bruce reviewed one in April,
2004—here is a link to the review.
http://www.dacs.org/archive/0404/
feature2.htmhttp://www.dacs.org/
archive/0404/feature2.htm.
Note that for many cards, you
must have a card reader that
understands the instructions
needed for doing low-level work
with the card. The article explains
this.
BRUCE PRESTON is president of West Mountain
Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT
specializing in database applications. A
DACS director, Bruce also leads the Access
SIG. Members may send tech queries to Bruce
at [email protected].
http://www.dacs.org
Candidates
The following DACS members have been nominated for the Board of Directors for 2005-2007. Please show your support by voting at the annual meeting, December 6, or by volunteering to serve on our Board.
Howie Berger — Sherman. A member of DACS for many years, He is a principle in Visual Access
Technology, Inc., a software development and consulting company located in Danbury, and
has over 30 years of experience in software development for Computer-Aided Design, Facilities Management, and Web-related consulting in Knowledge and Information Management.
Howie is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Candlewood Lake Authority where he has been
active in educational outreach within the 5 lake towns. He was actively involved in land use and
environmental causes in Redding over his 16 years there prior to moving to Sherman 4 ½
years ago, and served on the Zoning Commission of the Town of Redding.
One of his goals as a board member is to facilitate an integration of members' expertise and
DACS resources throughout the broader business community. He would also like to see an
expansion of services and education to the general public.
Sean N. Henderson — Brookfield,. Sean and his family moved to CT in 2003 from NYC, where he
lived and performed for 10 years. Originally from Los Angeles, his first computer was a Radio
Shack TRS-80. Sean holds a Bachelor's in Music Business, and several certifications including
Audio Production, GUI Design, Perl/CGI, and HTML. He currently teaches piano, plays drums for
Where's Jane, and does Perl/Web Development.
For more information on Sean, visit www.SeanNHenderson.Net/dacs.html.
.
Lisa Leifels — Newtown. A member of DACS for 5 years, and as of April of this year has served
as the secretary of DACS. She has enjoyed attending both the general meetings and the Microsoft
Access Special Interest Group meetings over the years and would like to become a more active
participant in the organization.
Lisa is a database consultant who has been working in the computer industry for over 15 years,
developing custom software solutions for client organizations..
Bruce Preston — Ridgefield, is a consultant specializing in PC-based software solutions with emphasis on database applications. He has more than 30 years of experience in such areas as data
communications, database management, technical support, and user education. For the past six
years he has moderated the Random Access sessions that start our monthly General Meetings,
as well as leading the monthly Microsoft Access Special Interest Group. Lately he has been joined
by his son Scott, who co-presented two General Meeting programs - "Building a Home Network"
and "Buying and Selling on eBay." His non-computer interests include digital photography, steam
locomotives, and bicycling.
Jeff Setaro — Danbury. A lifelong Danbury resident, Jeff has been involved in the computer industry for more than 17 years. He has been a DACS member for 11 years and has served as a
DACS vice president for six of them. After stepping down from Program Chair to assume
direction of the DACS Web page, he was persuaded to continue in both capacities. He also
serves as information coordinator on computer viruses and until recently as director of the
Web page design SIG. He is a member of the 1995 VAR business advisory board and is
frequently called upon to comment on industry issues.
Jim Scheef — New Milford. Jim Scheef has been a DACS member since DOG became WCMUG.
He has activelyparticipated in the club over the years on the Program Committee, and as head of
the Internet Committee. For the past six or more years Jim has been a co-leader of the Visual
Basic SIG and started the Back Office SIG last year.
Jim has been a software developer since the days when mainframes were high-tech. His
company, Telemark Systems Inc., provides custom software and networking solutions to businesses around Connecticut.
Jim’s goals for DACS are to provide new services to the members via the DACS.ORG web
site and to expand the use of the Resource Center as a learning facility. Jim convinced the board
to install a DSL internet connection in the Resource Center as a step in this direction.
http://www.dacs.org
DEC 2005 • 15
Voic
e
oice
ffor
or
Joanie
One- to four-color printing
Direct from disk high speed
black & white and color copying
now available
For All Your Printing, Graphics, and Copying Needs
3 Commerce Drive
Danbury, CT 06810
(203)792-5045
Fax (203)792-5064
[email protected]
Help give the
gift of speech
Call Shirley Fredlund
at 203 770-6203
and become a
Voice for Joanie
volunteer.
December 6 • John Patrick - The Future of the Internet
January 3 • Jim Scheef - OpenOffice
This space available
Contact Charles Bovaird
Phone: (203) 792-7881
E-mail: [email protected]
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In addition to the general meeting, DACS sponsors many
anbury Area Computer Society is a nonprofit corporation organized under section special interest groups (SIGs) where members can learn and
(501) (C) (3) of the US Tax Code. Its purpose share information about a specific topic. Each SIG plans its
is to promote education, knowledge sharing, net- own meeting schedule and program topics.
Our newsletter, dacs.doc is published monthly for
working and communication between users of personal computers. DACS is an all volunteer organi- our members, and mailed to arrive before the general
zation, with no employees. The major source of in- meeting. It features articles written by members and othcome is member dues. Members can volunteer to ers on timely topics including product and software reviews, issues and trends in personal computing and “howbecome instructors, lecturers, DACS officers and
board members, committee members, or SIG to” articles on sound, video, digital photography, etc. In
addition, each issues includes the calendar of meetings,
leaders.
We sponsor or participate in community sup- announcements on SIGs and other DACS events.
port projects by collecting, repairing, and redis- dacs.doc has won numerous prizes over the years for its
tributing used computer equipment and software design and content.
Through its activities, DACS offers numerous opto community service providers such as schools,
libraries, and patient/client support groups. portunities to network both professionals and computer
DACS members provide pickup, refurbishing, hobbyists. Our Special Interest Groups are an excellent
installation, and training assistance as needed. way for members to both learn and share application or
Firms or individuals with equipment to donate hardware knowledge. Any DACS member can form a
special interest group on any topic where there is intershould leave a message on the DACS Infoline
(203-748-4330).or send an email to est. Most SIGs meet in our Resource Center in downtown Danbury.
[email protected].
If you have concerns, requests, or suggestions reThe Voice for Joanie program was created in
1992 through the initiative of DACS member, garding DACS or its programs, please contact
Shirley Fredlund. This program provides computer- [email protected]. DACS officers and board memassisted speech for victims of amyotrophic lateral bers’ phone numbers are listed on page 3 of dacs.doc.
sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s Disease”).
DACS members have contributed volunteer time and technical assistance since
the program began. Voice for Joanie and
DACS have earned national computer industry recognition and financial assistance
for this vital collaboration.
Our general meetings are held on the
first Tuesday of each month in the Danbury
Hospital Auditorium at 7 p.m. These
meetings are open to the public.The main
presentation is scheduled from 8-9:30,
preceded by casual networking, announcements and Random Access, an informal question and answer session. A
The DACS Resource Center is in Ives Manor, Lower Level,
free product raffle is often held at the con198 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810 (203-748-4330).
clusion of the main presentation.
DANBURY AREA
COMPUTER SOCIETY, Inc.
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Regular Membership - Includes printed newsletter.
1 Year ( ) $25.00 3 Years ( ) $68.00
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Payment by cash, check or mail order, payable to:
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DACS, Inc
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Tell Us About Yourself
Please take a moment to answer the following questions. Answer all that apply.
Hours a week you use computers _____ How did you learn about DACS? _______________________
Hardware: PC___ MAC___ desktop___ laptop___ palm___ other_______
OPSYS: Windows___ MAC___ LINUX___ other_________
Communications: Dialup___ HI-Speed____ WiFi____ LAN____ other_______
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Meeting Location
Traveling West on I-84, Take Exit 6. Turn right at exit
ramp light at North Street. Turn right on Hayestown
Avenue’ Turn right on Tamarack Avenue. Follow
Tamarack Avenue uphill to traffic light. Turn left at
this light onto Hospital Avenue. Follow Hospital
Avenue to appropriate visitor parking lot on right.
Traveling East on I-84: Take Exit 5. After stop sign,
go straight ahead to intersection of Main Street and
North Street. Go straight through onto North Street
Turn right off North Street to Maple Avenue. Go on
Maple Avenue to Osborne Street. Turn left on
Osborne Street. Turn left onto Hospital Avenue
Follow Hospital Avenue to appropriate visitor
parking lot on right.
Danbury Hospital
24 Hospital Avenue
Danbury, CT